Help!! How Can I Off the Floor the quickest?

I have had it with floor nursing. 18 years-I'm done~ take the fork out. I'm going back to school - wanted to go for Informatics. Still not sure if I should get the BSN or straight to the MSN, does it really matter? But in the mean time I'm caught in the how to do you get expericence if you don't have experience trap. Anyone know anything about coding? VIable option? I've done charge work, not really that good at it, and not comfortable at it. Teaching is great, but again, no BSN or MSN... any ideas? Who to talk to about career changing? Help! Thanks!

There is no quick and easy way -- unless you get really lucky. It takes time and planning to swich careers successfully. So my first recommendation is to find a way to either stay where you are or transfer to somewhere similar (where your current skills will suffice) for a little while longer. Perhaps switching to part time ... or simply a change of shift or unit will help buy you a little time while you plan for the next stage of your career.

Once you have bought yourself a little time ... then do some researching and soul-searching. Assess yourself and your situation. What are you talents? Your skills? Your career preferences? How much are you willing to invest in re-training? What opportunities do you see as feasible options? Perhaps you should buy a book or two on nursing careers and career planning to help you start thinking about it. (Try Amazon.com) Skim nursing journals that relate to specialities/roles that attract your attention to help you get a feel for those specialties.

Once you have done all that beginning researching and soul-searching ... you should start narrowing down your list of possibilities a little. Then investigate each of those possibilities in depth. What skills/education would they require? What is the likelihood that you could switch into that field? Talk to people in those fields. etc. Then ask the big question: "Will it be worth it?" Then make a decision and start doing what you need to do.

Good luck to you.

Jun 19, '12

Thank you for your ideas. I hadn't thought about the career books. The only thing I know for sure is I really do not want more nursing classes- ever. Thats why I thought Health Informatics would be good, but I keep getting mixed messages from people in the field. Maybe I should "suck it up" and go for nursing classess and get MSN and teach or something. I can stick it out for a little while , but its hard!!! ( LOL yes, I just saw the irony)